From There To Here
Steve Khouw
A refugee who fled Indonesia at 9 now advocates for migrants exploited by platforms and men at risk of suicide, driven by his parents' conviction that freedom matters.
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Steve Khouw was nine years old when tanks rolled up to his house in 1960s Indonesia. His family, ethnic Chinese, were marked as communist sympathizers by the Suharto regime. When soldiers shot their dog, his parents knew it was time to leave. They fled to Singapore, then Australia, carrying almost nothing but his father's conviction: freedom at last, freedom of expression.
His father, a lawyer, could only get one year of his qualification recognised in Australia. Instead of finishing his degree, he took multiple jobs to feed three kids and pay three mortgages on a $14,000 house. His mother sewed boardshorts for 50 cents each, retail for $20. The family stuck envelope labels until 2am before school. Steve arrived at an Australian primary school speaking no English, shocked by how students talked back to teachers. But that same freedom to challenge authority freed something in him. When kids called him a cow at the gate, he learned to stand his ground. Nine times out of ten, they backed down.
Steve carried his parents' values into adulthood: take the best from each culture, throw away the rest. He worked as a mining engineer, marketer, coal seller, green building designer. He became a food delivery rider to stay fit and discovered migrant riders being exploited by platforms with no safety protections or compensation. He advocated for them. He started preventing male suicide, a crisis that claims six out of every eight Australian lives lost each day. In his frontline work, he encounters two to three cases a month.
Now Steve speaks about freedom the way his father did. He takes elderly people for walks. He pushes back against racism, quietly and directly. He calls himself true blue Australian, and he means it.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation and suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
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